The Mobile Developer Conference is a premier Microsoft event that features the latest on building and bringing to market the next wave of devices, applications, and services for the Windows Mobile and Windows platforms. Filipino software developers can expect to learn new and existing mobile and embedded technologies through technical sessions, demonstrations and discussions with industry and Microsoft experts.

Microsoft Philippines Developer and Platform Manager Stanley Tan said that there is a growing interest among software developers not only in the Philippines but also worldwide to target the mobile platform.

"It is time to take the skills of Filipino software developers to the next level. Microsoft wants to open the eyes of Filipino mobile developers to see the opportunities that are possible on software solutions for mobile devices, and at the same time we want to train them how to do it," Tan said.

The Mobile Developer Conference will be one of the main highlights at the Software Innovations Philippines 2006 conference and exhibit to be held on May 8-10 at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel. The three-day event, which will showcase the best-of-breed software solutions in the Philippines, is presented by Microsoft Philippines together with the Philippine Software Industry Association, the Business Processing Association of the Philippines and other industry partners.

Microsoft is targetting about 300 software developers to attend the Mobile Developer Conference. "The mobile space is a very exciting field. The phones and other mobile devices are getting more powerful and sophisticated with bigger disks and data capability. The data communication network infrastructure is definitely stronger with 3G around. These trends will also revolutionize how we develop software applications.For Microsoft, we will continue to empower people with the magic of software. It is a tradition that we started with the personal computer and expanded with graphical user interfaces and the Internet. Now we see it moving to new levels with wireless networks and small yet powerful and mobile devices that are connected to them," Tan said.

Topics to be discussed during the Mobile Developer Conference include: Innovations in the Mobile Software Development, Introduction to the Compact Framework v2.0, New API of Windows Mobile 5.0, SQL CE Development and Building Native Applications in Visual Studio 2005.

According to the Philippine Software Industry Association, the Philippines is particularly well-suited to address niche market opportunities in mobile/wireless applications, animations, and gaming software.

"The Philippines can carve a niche in the software development market by focusing on mobile applications. The country has strong potential in developing applications for mobile devices," Tan said.

During the Mobile Developer Conference, participants can expect to learn how do successfully develop and deploy mobile applications for multiple devices using Windows Mobile.

The sessions will discuss how to overcome the challenges inherent in mobile applications development such as differences in screen size, input support, and device capabilities.

Participants can expect to learn techniques that they can use to enable their applications to detect device differences, and to automatically adjust the application user interface and available features to provide the best user experience for that particular device.

"The advantage of working with the Microsoft platform when developing mobile applications is that the learning curve is not that steep. Making the jump to mobile devices from desktop applications is very easy and we intend to show this through the Mobile Developer Conference," Tan said.